Four rounds. First a screening with their HR rep. She went over all the deal breakers like pay and work schedule to get them out of the way. There was no hiding anything so this was good.
Next interview was with ecommerce manager who was awesome and a genuinely curious interviewer. This interview was partially in Japanese to gauge level as it was listed as preferred requirement.
Third interview was with an ecommerce VP that works in a different state. This one largely felt like the second interview but without the language test. The same questions were asked, so I'm not sure why they didn't just have him sit in on the second interview. Perhaps it was a scheduling conflict and his approval was needed. He was a friendly guy though and I enjoyed talking to him.
The fourth interview was with their Senior VP. I believe this was the "fit" interview. It was in full Japanese right from the start and switched to English about 10 minutes in. From here there was a lot of questions about why I left the military, why I moved to Japan, why I left Japan, why I did this job, why I left that job, why am I not looking for a similar job to that, etc. Not a single question about my MBA program and why I'm currently in school. It really felt more like an interview to find me unfit for the job rather than being fit for it. Despite this I remained friendly and answered everything to the best of my ability, and shoehorned relevant MBA course material into how it would fit the role. The interviewer stayed extra time over to answer my questions which I thought was a good sign that I was doing better than I thought. At the end he told me to expect results by the end of the following week. I walked away thinking that I didn't knock it out, but I had no regrets and did my best. I prepared for hours and hours beforehand.
Here is where it goes south, and the 3-star rating comes from. The very next day, no less than two hours after I sent a thank you letter to the original HR representative, I got a generic rejection email from her assistant. I politely asked if it was possible to receive feedback, and it's now been two weeks with nothing. I applied for another role and emailed HR about it, thinking that surely because I made it to the final round for another role that they'd consider me, but nope, radio silence.
Part of me thinks perhaps they went with an internal hire which was why the rejection came back so fast. Perhaps it is their policy to take two or three all the way to the end and I was just along for the ride. Maybe it was my Japanese level that wasn't good enough, although if that was the case why was I progressed after the second interview? Unfortunately for me, I REALLY wanted this job and am a big fan of the company. To make it to the final round and then get thrown out with zero feedback really hurt.
If somebody from HR is reading this, please do better. Final round candidates deserve more than a generic email after so much has been invested into the process.
Overall the interview difficulty was average, but the final interview was difficult due to all the "why" questions, so I'll rate the whole thing as such. The whole thing beginning to end was about three weeks, so I can't complain there.
One process complaint I do have is how much they stressed "x amount of time with Excel" but didn't ask a single question about HOW to use Excel, as if time equals skill and knowledge alone. Not one process question in all four interviews about how I would solve a problem, sort and clean data, run regressions, analyze statistical data, insights on how to increase customer conversion based on those findings, etc. For a job that has so much emphasis on Excel, I found it odd that they did not ask me to demonstrate knowledge either verbally, screen share, ask me for samples of coursework, etc. For this reason as well I rate interview difficult, as the nature of the questions make it difficult to prove you can actually do the role.
